Epress.am News from Armenia
Turkey must deal with the ghosts of the past if it wants to become one of the world’s top 10 economies by 2023, Washington’s envoy to Ankara said following controversy over a French bill to criminalize denial of genocides, including the Armenian Genocide.
“Every great country has brilliant moments of which we are proud in our pasts and moments of pain,” Francis Ricciardone, the US ambassador to Turkey, told a group of Ankara bureau chiefs late on Jan. 25. “We think that historians need to grapple with this in an open and honest way so that you can come to a full and frank acknowledgement of what happened. We believe that you are beginning to do that.”
“We like to see our friends get along and we hope that you will overcome this dispute,” Ricciardone said without commenting on the nature of the French legislation. Instead, he reiterated Washington’s objective of launching a new dialogue process between Turks and Armenians.
“There needs to be a conversation. You need to get the historians together on both sides. I’ve been glad to see since I’ve come back to Turkey this past year that there is much more public conversation and debate. It’s no longer a closed box,” he said, the Hurriyet Daily News reported.
“Turks have greater confidence now to look into the past and to a painful chapter and decide what it means. There is more contact between Turks and Armenians to wrestle with this terrible period of time. So we support that and we hope you will arrive at it,” he said.